User blog:LeMansRacer/Car Articles
Car Articles Creation There will soon be some changes to how car articles are put together here on the Need for Speed Wiki. Currently, all categories have to be manually added once the article has been created. This will soon be reduced to only requiring unique categories to be created. Infobox 'Initial Implementation' All car articles use Template:InfoboxCar2 as this was creating following the decision to split up car articles from a page for all models in a single to a page for each model in a range. For example, the article for the Chevrolet Camaro included every Camaro featured in the Need for Speed series but was split up into individual year, specification and design. Infobox 2 was created to allow for us to slowly break a part all of these articles and not suddenly create pages of errors across the site by altering the original infobox. 'New Implementation' The currently used infobox will soon be altered to automatically add a car to certain categories and perform numeric expressions for mass as well as top speed. These changes to the infobox will require some editing on all car pages before it can function correctly. These expressions are generated based on the top speed and kerb weight given in topspeed= and weight=. They will replace the need of adding a topspeed2= and weight2= for km/h and pounds. These categories are generated based on the numbers added to the infobox on the article. Inputting the vehicle's BHP will currently place it into a category, as some of you may have noticed over the weekend. Additional values such as manufacturer, country of origin, torque in pound-feet, drivetrain and kerb weight in kilograms will soon generate a category. 'Usage' The infobox will be still be used in the same manner it has been previously; *'name' - Place the vehicle's model name. This is typically the name without the manufacturer but some models, specifically some Lamoborghini models, have a horrifically long name. Names should only take up a single line and should not be split along two; can be used to reduced the size of a name but abbreviating certain parts is typically sufficient enough. *'manufacturer' - This is the maker of the vehicle. Joint ventures may require the names of both parties. *'image' - An image of the vehicle and should not feature any vehicles other than that the article is with regards to. The image needs to be at least 1280x720 and in a jpeg format although the aspect ratio can be either 16:9 or 4:3 depending on the title the vehicle was featured in. *'origin' - The country of which the vehicle was built. *'production' - The initial factory production year to the final year. This should be written as #### - #### or #### - Present. *'engine' - Written as engine displacement, aspiration (if applicable), engine configuration, series (if applicable) and any additional information although this should be on a separate line. Example for the McLaren P1 - 3.8L Twin-Turbo V8 (M838T) & ELEC MTR. *'drivetrain' - Either F, R or A. *'weight' - The kerb weight of a vehicle in kilograms. Kerb weight is the total mass of a vehicle with all standard equipment fitted, all operating consumables such as oil and a full tank of fuel. *'bhp' - The peak amount of horsepower generated by a vehicle. *'bhp2' - The rev range point that the peak amount of horsepower is generated by a vehicle. *'torque' - The peak amount of torque generated by a vehicle. *'torque2' - The rev range point that the peak amount of torque is generated by a vehicle. *'accel' - The time in seconds for a vehicle to go from 0 to 60mph. This should not exceed a single decimal place (3.2). *'top speed' - The factory confirmed top speed of a vehicle in miles per hour. *'transmission' - The amount of gears that a vehicle has. *'transmission2' - The type of gearbox a vehicle has. This can either be Manual, Automatic, Semi-Automatic, Sequential, Maumatic or Electrohydraulic due to each having different specifications of usage. 'Discussion' The following two categories will not be added to the automation of the infobox; Vehicles by Top Speed and Vehicles by 0-60 mph time. These values can be easily made redundant in some Need for Speed titles but can be very useful in others. While they will not be added as of this blog post, they can be added in later. Please discuss their usage in the comments section below. Content Regarding A Vehicle Car articles make up a large chunk of this wiki and readers can easily become confused as to which car is which. Be sure to include at least a paragraph of content with regards to the vehicle the article is covering. The content itself doesn't have to be of thesis quality, but something as to why the car is special is best. Generally, an article is deemed adequate when the amount of text visible surpasses the length of the infobox when previewed at minimum width. The Nissan GT-R Proto is an example of an article lacking content, the Koenigsegg One:1 is an example of an article with an adequate amount of content and the BMW M3 GTR (Race) is the best case scenario although is overly spaced at maximum width. Describing A Car Per Game Each Need for Speed title treats a car differently and that means no two renditions of a car are the same. Do you want to write about your favourite car on the wiki but don't know how? Check out this older blog post regarding Article Editing - Reviewing a Car. Trivia The trivia section should be placed between the final game a car has been featured in and the gallery section. If there is no gallery, the trivia section goes above the reference section. If neither a gallery of reference section is present, it goes above the footer nav boxes. Trivia should only contain content that would be otherwise a note or supplemental piece of information regarding a vehicle. What is regarded as useful content is subjective per each vehicle and Need for Speed title. Content regarding speculation, fan-fiction, personal view or game manipulation is not allowed. References Content requires referencing. If you don't give the content you've added a reference, then it'll be removed. References can be added in either the article you're editing by putting a url with next to your content in between or by adding the url to your edit summary found above the Preview and Publish buttons. Gallery Images of a vehicle can be added to a gallery so long as it does not violate the manual of style with regards to images. Each vehicle article that has a gallery with the following snippet of code at the top - and at the base. Each image should state the title that the image was captured in. Additional information should be added with (Unique Attirbute) to highlight what makes it unique. Categories There are various categories used through out all of our car articles on the wiki. Here are a few that need to be better defined for those editing. *Category:Police Vehicles is meant for combining police vehicles per game and is not meant for a car that is a police vehicle. Closing I hope you all have a great spring and as always - here's a song for getting through all of the article and you can comment as you wish. --'LMR' Category:Blog posts